Geophysical survey at the Upper Wümme Lowland – The search goes on

The Upper Wümme Lowland (Obere Wümmeniederung) is a nature reserve in the county of Harburg, in which the water-saturated soil offer ideal conditions for the preservation of biological artifacts. At the east end of the lowland Stone Age, surface sites are lined up like pearls on a string. Those were reported by amateur archaeologists to the office for preservation of archaeological monuments in Harburg in the last decades. The sites between the terminal moraine, called Todtshorner Berg, and the fen in the lowland are probably campsites with stone tools from the Mesolithic period. 

To learn more about the life of Mesolithic groups in the north of Lower Saxony, the archaeologist Svea Mahlstedt has been working with her project “Mesolithic in Northwestern Germany” at the Upper Wümme Lowland since 2023. The data takin until now show an interaction with the vegetation and the environment. 

With her colleague Jeffrey König and in cooperation with Lorenz Luick and Lukas Eckert from the University of Hamburg, the exploration of this unusual site has now been extended by a georadar investigation. Between April 1 and 3, 2025, 12 hectares were surveyed with the radar device and boreholes were also drilled to serve as reference data. The recorded data will be analyzed in the future by Erica Corradini from Kiel of University and used to reconstruct the landscape.